The olive oil industry generates during the extraction process several solid wastes as olive tree leaves and prunings, exhausted pomace and olive pits. These renewable wastes could be used for power and heat applications. The aim of this paper is to compare the performance of two small-scale CHP systems: a gasification- gas turbine system and an EFGT (externally fired gas turbine system). For this reason, several parameters have been calculated: generated heat and power, electric and overall efficiencies, biomass consumption, exergy efficiency, optimum pressure ratio, etc. These systems provide 30 kW(e) and about 60kW(th). Simulation results show that the electrical and overall efficiencies achieved in EFGT system (19.1% and 59.3%, respectively) are significantly higher than those obtained in the gasification plant (12.3% and 45.4%). The proposed CHP systems have been modeled using Cycle-Tempo (R) software. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.